Long-term memory for temporal structure: Evidence from the identification of well-known and novel songs

In three experiments, long-term memory for temporal structure was examined by having participants identify both well-known (e.g., "I've Been Working o n the Railroad") and novel songs. The target songs were subjected to a numb er of rhythmic alterations, to assess the importance of four critical featu res of identification performance. The four critical features were meter, p hrasing, rhythmic contour (ordinal scaling of note durations), and the rati o of successive durations. In contract with previous work, the unaltered ve rsion of each song was identified significantly better than any altered ver sion. This indicates that rhythm is stored in long-term memory. Furthermore , the results demonstrated that all four critical features play a role in t he identification of songs. These results held for both well-known and nove l tunes.